More from Muscatatuck.....

Here are a few more images of animals we saw while at Muscatatuck.  I would love to go back now that I have my other camera back!  Probably not this year, unless later in the fall.

We saw lots of swallows swooping over the waters.  This one was resting.......

......I hope he has his handicap sticker with him.  I believe they are Tree Swallows.

We saw several large families of Wood ducks.  I was surprised that they didn't immediately start swimming away to hide from us.

None of the photos with the male are very good.

Here you can see two families.

And of course, there were lots of Red-wing Blackbirds around.

The female was harder to see.  I saw her disappear into these cattails after I snapped this and figured her nest was in there somewhere.

Great Blue Herons........here and there and flying over at times.

This one was the closest one we saw for a photo.

Somehow the day seemed perfect for a tree full of Vultures......drizzly, misty, gray.

One of several deer we saw.

We also saw Kingbirds and the common songbirds that I see at my own house.  It would be nice to live near there and be able to just park your car and wait to see what wildlife happens to come by.  We didn't see any otters this year, but remembered where we had seen them last year. 

Waterproofing the nest??.......

While Mike was getting a motel room arranged for us, I was sitting in the car watching this Robin.  It had found a piece of plastic trash that it wanted.

It was a rather large piece and he was having trouble getting a good grip.

Sometimes the plastic was "winning"......

.....sometimes the Robin was winning!

It finally separated a nice "handle" to grab hold of.

But the wind gave it a lot of trouble.  Where was all of this leading???

Once the Robin got a good grip and took off, it went to the top of the motel sign where it obviously has a nest behind the "T" in Suites.  Doesn't seem like good nest material, but maybe with all the rain we have had, it wanted to waterproof its nest :-)

Can you see the Robin sitting on the plastic and looking through it?  Nesting materials are hanging down from behind the T.

A video of part of the "great battle of the plastic".

Baby geese........

We just got back from a two day trip with friends over to Muscatatuck Wildlife Refuge in Seymour, Indiana......plus 4 wineries along the way.  It was a short trip and drizzled rain the whole two days, but we did get a few photos and saw lots of good stuff.  My better camera is now fixed and was suppose to arrive the day we were leaving, so I tried to get them to let me pick it up at FedEx, but they loaded it on the truck anyway and we had to leave before it arrived.  Then to make it worse, the driver left it sitting propped up, unattended against the front door for the two days we were gone!  I guess I'm lucky to have it back at all....and not water logged!  So all the photos from the trip are with the old camera and many were very "pixely" (if that is a word) and useless.  Some things I thought we had good photos of, we didn't.

I always enjoy the Canada Geese and their babies and we saw quite a few families of them.  This was a very small family....just one baby.

A much larger family of 6 young ones.

A family curled up on the bank.

Three babes....

....Six babes.

This family had the youngest ones we saw....so cute and fuzzy, but hard to pick out in the tall grass.

Many photos that I'll be showing were taken by Mike.  It just depended on who was on the right side of the car with the best view.

Birds from a drive near the river in Henderson, KY.....

We keep going to Henderson hoping that the water is down enough to get near where we watch the birds.  Still too high and several roads closed.  So we headed to the road that we call "the butterfly road" where we often see lots of butterflies and some birds.  We didn't see any butterflies, but did catch a few interesting birds along the way.

The first was a Dickissel.  They like to sit on the top of small trees or bushes like this one and sing.  Sometimes we see them up on the wires also.

It's a rather pretty bird with the touches of yellow.

Then we saw a Pileated Woodpecker in someones front yard.

It was pecking the ground near the remains of an old tree stump.  Looking for bugs, I assume.

I think this is a female Cowbird.  She flew across the road in front of us and appears to have something in her beak.

This Eastern Wood-Pewee was a happy find.  I could tell it was some sort of flycatcher, but didn't know what it was until I got back home with my books.

I don't know which little sparrow this is, but it was willing to pose for us.  There were several flying around together.

Then on the way home, we saw this one turkey all by itself out in a field.  I was surprised to not see others with it.

This is the best shot I've gotten of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak this year.  It just won't sit up and turn around and let me see its pretty pink chest!

Caught this House Wren going in and out of the gourd.  Probably just stuffing it with twigs.  They do that a lot, but I'm not sure if it has a mate or not.  I guess we will see.  I hear it singing whenever I am outside.

Birds, raccoons, and squirrel......

Things are beginning to dry out some around here.  Still high water in the river and creeks.  All I have to offer today are the home birds and critters.

This Goldfinch female was being so careful to pull out a seed and not drop it.

"Lunch!"

Sitting in the tree

A Mockingbird getting some suet

Since I showed his mate in my last post, I thought I would post the male Red-winged Blackbird.  I really don't know why they are hanging around my house. Our pond doesn't have a lot of reeds or a grassy type area they like.  They must be living along the drainage ditches or a neighboring pond and just come to my house to eat free seeds :-)

An unwelcome visitor......this big raccoon shows up every day.  Usually they only come at night to steal the left-over seeds, but I've been seeing this one in the day time.  Hope it doesn't have a bunch of babies!

I even spotted it climbing the Ash tree to get at the big suet cake that hangs there.....which didn't have much in it. 

This little squirrel sneaked up to the front step to get a drink from a dish of rainwater that was sitting there.

I hope to get out today or tomorrow and see if we can get to any of our favorite photo places.  Still haven't got my camera back, but I'm anxious to see what all the birds are doing in the high water areas.